6 Things For 2026 You Need To Think About

Welcome to Million Dollar Grit, the podcast that dives deep into the world of entrepreneurship, where tenacity meets strategy and dreams meet reality. My name is Julie, and I explore the raw, often overlooked truths of what it takes to succeed in business and in life. It's not just about the glossy success stories. It's about the grit it takes to get there.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Million Dollar Grit. Today I want to talk a little bit about planning for 2026 and some things that I'm encouraging my private clients to do. I hope this is helpful. I'm really trying to streamline what's important and what's not. And as we watch AI continue to eviscerate all the normal things we used to sell that now, oh, A.I. can do it. A.I. can do it. AI can do it. There are specific values and priorities I think all of us need to focus on in the course creation and coaching space. This is going to become a world where you can literally design anything. In fact, at the, at the time of publishing this episode, Gemini 3 just came out. It's blowing people out of the water. They are building websites and apps in one shot so you can design anything. Your biggest strength will be discernment. It'll be knowing what to say no to. In fact, I think the people who can say no will win a lot more than the people who say yes. This is a ruthless focus times 10. And this goes for your customers, too. So if you have clients or customers, as a course creator, coach, as an expert, you're going to need to help them discern and figure out what to say no to, because anything will be possible, like anything. And you're going to want to encourage them and yourself to build products that lead to one clear transformational outcome. I've heard people explain it kind of like we're building a barbell economy. Two things I think are going to sell well in 2026, human premium only goods. Those are things like, you know, human coaching, transformational coaching, transfer transformational courses with a real human instructor, and then cost effective, more affordable AI assisted goods. And I think if you make the distinction clear, people will be happy if they buy something that's cost effective and aff, they know that AI is supplementing it. If they buy something human and premium, they're going to want your attention. The thing that, you know, we've always said isn't scalable is the thing that's going to become actually more, more valuable. Because it's not scalable, right? Because it's going to be Scarce in the sea of AI slop. It doesn't mean that as a human coach or a human instructor you can't use AI. It's just making that distinction very, very clear and, and know and letting people know when it's AI and when it's you. Really, really important. So if you think of that barbell, you're going to want those two things in your business. With that said, community and connection are going to matter more than ever. And in those human only goods and human focused goods, you want to be sure that you are prioritizing community and connection. So how does this look for us? Like in Funnel Gorgeous. We are committed to human customer support. In the, you know, the daytime hours, we're using AI for nighttime support and that's really valuable and that makes our company more valuable because people know that they can hop on, chat with someone who is an actual human that's going to be able to support them. It goes without saying that you absolutely have to try to own your data, email list, SMS list. Don't assume that you can just make it on the algorithm alone. A lot of social media is getting overwhelmed with AI slope and you don't want to contribute to that because again, as AI slop grows and grows and grows, you will start to sound different. If you remain human focused doesn't mean you're not using AI, but it's important to use AI for the things that are going to actually free up your time to be more human focused with your audience, that's going to make the difference. And because social media algorithms are using AI now in ads and meta, like they're not even letting you target your copy your creative, your voice will be the only tools that you have at your disposal, at your disposal to attract your ideal customer from social media onto your list. And AI is going to take over all targeting. That is why being very skilled at your messaging and your communication is so, so important. I know a lot of people, you know, left the SEO scene, you know, blogging kind of made its heyday in the early 2000s and then social media took over. But searchability for Both humans and AI is so important in 2026 because the social media platforms are becoming more and more bots and AI slot people are retreating into their AI bots for answers. They're going to, you know, chat GBT or Gemini or wherever to ask, what do I do here? If you're not searchable because of, you know, if AI can't find you and customers can't find you, you're screwed so be sure that searchability is a priority. Use your voice and your face as much as humanly possible. Those are the things that I want you to think about. And now I want to spend the rest of this episode talking about the six priorities that I am advising all of my private clients to focus on and for all my private clients, making sure that these are dialed in. I'm going to go through each one and explain what each one is. Number one, you need a high quality free offer. That's because you want to be able to own your data and build your list. When I say high quality, I do not mean a PDF or a checklist. Those are not very good anymore. They don't work very well. When I say high quality, I mean a book or I mean a private audio course or private email course or some very advanced personalized assessment or a very valuable newsletter. These are the high quality free offers. There's an additional one that I think is getting a lot of traction and that is a micro SaaS or some sort of vibe coded app tool that people can use. GPTs are still being used as opt ins as well. But you need one high quality free offer so that you can own your data. The second thing you need in 2026 is a strong sales presentation. I I have watched so many of my clients change their financial future by committing to a solid strong sales presentation where they are actually there live. And this shows up in the weekly live webinar. Whether you're selling something that they can buy right then and there or whether you're asking them to fill out an application, both work. Uh, you can still do on demand webinar presentations. They don't work quite as well. But another alternative that is still working is a monthly paid live workshop. Again, notice that you are showing up live. You need a strong sales presentation to a clear transformational offer that is number two, number three, a dialed in search channel. Again, this is related to the fact that as social media gets overwhelmed with bots, people are going to not want to be on social media. So they're going to go into their little AI LLM. They're going to ask for advice. If you don't have a podcast, if you're not blogging, or if you're not on YouTube, AI is going to have a difficult time finding you. The fourth thing you're going to need is a dialed in social channel. I, I still maintain that a social channel is a great place for people to build that trust and rapport. Even if you hate social media. If I say to you, hey, go check out so and so. Usually the first thing you do is you go check them out on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn or where what have you. I would pick one social channel that you dominate, whether It's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or LinkedIn. But you need one at least that shows that human side of you. The fifth thing you need is one solid daily sales activity. This is something that you're doing every single day to drum up sales. I have four different types of sales activities that I recommend. DM conversations is one, Email marketing is another. Facebook group commenting is another, especially if you're in an active group and in person. And online networking is another. If you're not doing sales daily in some sort of way, you are going to fall behind. And the sixth thing you need is one introductory offer. As I was talking about that barbell talking about the human only premium goods and then the AI assisted affordable goods, you need an introductory offer. And I want you to remember that everything is getting cheaper because of AI. Whereas before you might have said, oh let's charge, you know, $47 for this, it's probably not going to go for more than seven to nine dollars. Think about that introductory offer really strategically because that will bring people into your world. Those are the six things which are high quality free offer, one strong sales presentation to a transformational offer, one dialed in search channel, one dialed in social channel, one solid daily sales activity and one introductory offer. These are the things that you need to focus on for 2026. I want to sign off this episode with a little PS or a bonus. Right now in the AI space I'm seeing Vibe coding as all the rage and I have to admit it is cool. We had a Vibe coding session at my mastermind Nuno ran it. It was awesome. I want to remind everyone though, if you're gonna Vibe code to build for actual problems, not just cool ideas. At the beginning of this episode I said that discernment and saying no would be important in the world where you can build anything and everything. This is true for Vibe co. I want you to remember that whereas it used to be that software as a service was this like 7, 8, 9 figure unicorn. If everybody can do it, that is going to crash. You do need to care about the user experience and the wrapper. But for many of us micro SaaS is going to be what we use for free or intro offers. It's not going to be the next eight figure unicorn. So just keep that in mind. As always, thanks for listening and I'll talk to you soon.

And there you have it, folks. Another dose of Million Dollar Grit. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired, equipped, and ready to face your own entrepreneurial journey with resolve. Remember, until next time, embrace the struggle, harness your grit, and keep pushing forward. You're stronger than any challenge you face. I'm Julie, and this has been Million Dollar Grit.